The Endor Iron Furnace

While this is a Hot Topic, (pun intended) I will start a question in connection to the furnaces or forges represneted and also the question is for those future members or new folks who just joined the ranks who do not know, all in the name of education.
Question: Where and How did they find the materials and ores used to create the weapons and to what extremes in some cases were taken to obtain them ?
 
Question: Where and How did they find the materials and ores used to create the weapons and to what extremes in some cases were taken to obtain them ? Please Share !!!
 
Great question. Several years ago, I started reading and researching the pig iron industry in the Shenandoah Valley. From my reading, and at present would be hard pressed to provide sources, it seems that in the late 18th and early 19th century. Pennsylvania Dutch miners started exploring the Valley in the Page County area because it looked similar to the area they had mined in Pennsylvania.

They found some good ore sources and the first rendition of Catherine's/Katherine's Furnace was born. Further exploration found more ore sources in Rockingham and Augusta Counties to the South. The town of Shenandoah, VA was particularly rich in raw iron and this area was heavily mined into the early 2oth century. A predecessor of the Norfolk and Western/ Norfolk Southern Railroad built a rail line into this area to transport iron to foundries in the North.

In my younger days I did a fair amount of back country hiking in the George Washington National Forest in South Eastern Augusta County. I have run into several abandoned open pit mines in what is now the Saint Mary's Wilderness Area.

There were also many old iron mines near the town of Buena Vista in Rockbridge County (near Lexington.)

I found a source that said prior to the ACW, Barges were floated down (North) the South Fork of the Shenandoah River with pig iron for the arsenal at Harper's Ferry. If you've seen the Shenandoah River lately that seems hard to believe due to all of the rocks and boulders. I hope this provides some insight into my area.
 
Great question. Several years ago, I started reading and researching the pig iron industry in the Shenandoah Valley. From my reading, and at present would be hard pressed to provide sources, it seems that in the late 18th and early 19th century. Pennsylvania Dutch miners started exploring the Valley in the Page County area because it looked similar to the area they had mined in Pennsylvania.

They found some good ore sources and the first rendition of Catherine's/Katherine's Furnace was born. Further exploration found more ore sources in Rockingham and Augusta Counties to the South. The town of Shenandoah, VA was particularly rich in raw iron and this area was heavily mined into the early 2oth century. A predecessor of the Norfolk and Western/ Norfolk Southern Railroad built a rail line into this area to transport iron to foundries in the North.

In my younger days I did a fair amount of back country hiking in the George Washington National Forest in South Eastern Augusta County. I have run into several abandoned open pit mines in what is now the Saint Mary's Wilderness Area.

There were also many old iron mines near the town of Buena Vista in Rockbridge County (near Lexington.)

I found a source that said prior to the ACW, Barges were floated down (North) the South Fork of the Shenandoah River with pig iron for the arsenal at Harper's Ferry. If you've seen the Shenandoah River lately that seems hard to believe due to all of the rocks and boulders. I hope this provides some insight into my area.
Yes it does, Charlie and Thank you, in 150 years plus the river as most rivers change dramaticly over time, like in one case in NC during the early 1800's the Cape Fear used to be massive inland until the The Cape Fear and Deep River Navigation Company started constructing canals along with the locks and dams trying to improve river travel which failed and that changed the river and is shallower than it used to be. I remember hearing in some places where there were no mines available that the soildiers had to find metal either melting it down like they did at the Endor Furnace or using scrap metal, food utensil's, buckshot etc... for Cannon amo.
 
Great question. Several years ago, I started reading and researching the pig iron industry in the Shenandoah Valley. From my reading, and at present would be hard pressed to provide sources, it seems that in the late 18th and early 19th century. Pennsylvania Dutch miners started exploring the Valley in the Page County area because it looked similar to the area they had mined in Pennsylvania.

They found some good ore sources and the first rendition of Catherine's/Katherine's Furnace was born. Further exploration found more ore sources in Rockingham and Augusta Counties to the South. The town of Shenandoah, VA was particularly rich in raw iron and this area was heavily mined into the early 2oth century. A predecessor of the Norfolk and Western/ Norfolk Southern Railroad built a rail line into this area to transport iron to foundries in the North.

In my younger days I did a fair amount of back country hiking in the George Washington National Forest in South Eastern Augusta County. I have run into several abandoned open pit mines in what is now the Saint Mary's Wilderness Area.

There were also many old iron mines near the town of Buena Vista in Rockbridge County (near Lexington.)

I found a source that said prior to the ACW, Barges were floated down (North) the South Fork of the Shenandoah River with pig iron for the arsenal at Harper's Ferry. If you've seen the Shenandoah River lately that seems hard to believe due to all of the rocks and boulders. I hope this provides some insight into my area.

There were quite a few iron mines in Virginia -- mostly in the Shenandoah Valley region and in the area to the south known as the Great Valley of Virginia.

Rockbridge County, Botetourt County and Augusta County all had iron mines. Some of these had been closed by the time the Civil War began (competition from cheaper, higher quality Pennsylvania iron was intense) but were re-opened for war production.

For the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, sourcing iron was a constant and more-or-less intractable problem. The Tredegar owners even received loans from the Confederate government to buy mines and operate them themselves.

Tredegar tried to buy iron elsewhere -- Tennessee and North Carolina, I believe -- but rail transport was unreliable. The Confederate government was even reduced to ripping up underused rail track to get scrap metal.

Everything I've learned about this subject comes from reading Charles Dew's book about Tredegar. I recommend it highly.
 
ironfurnaces.png


The earliest iron furnace in Virginia is recorded in operation around 1620.

http://www.virginiaplaces.org/ggs380/10iron.html
 
The wilderness area of virginia owes its name from metallurgy. Gold and iron were prevalent. The towns of Gold Dale and the Mine Run valley and Catherine Furnace reflect this. The terrain does too. Hard woods were cut for the furnace as they burned clean and hot unlike the pine that was low temp but high pollution. This left gaps in the canopy that allowed vines and new trees and such to grow and create the 'wilderness'.
 

You definitely learn something just about every time you come on CWT. I had no idea about the iron industry in CT. I knew there were furnaces but I didn't know there were 43 in the state. It was BIG business from mid-1800s to 19th C. - the last one closing in 1925. The one pictured is CT only "industrial monument" - on the Historical Registry.

Well I'll be! Thanks for posting.
 
You definitely learn something just about every time you come on CWT. I had no idea about the iron industry in CT. I knew there were furnaces but I didn't know there were 43 in the state. It was BIG business from mid-1800s to 19th C. - the last one closing in 1925. The one pictured is CT only "industrial monument" - on the Historical Registry.

Well I'll be! Thanks for posting.

I grew up just over the New York State border near Danbury. I lived in the neighborhood of the old Tilly Foster mine, in Brewster, N.Y., which was big iron producer in the area up until the 1880s.

http://www.southeastmuseum.org/html/iron_mining.html

There are old iron mines all over the Hudson Valley.

Some of the iron found its way to West Point Foundry, which is not in West Point but in Cold Spring N.Y.

west-point-foundry-c1845-granger.jpg


The foundry was famed for its production of the Parrott rifle, which was a nasty piece of business and the woe of many, many Confederates.

model-1861-10-pounder-parrott-rifle.jpg
 
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